<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>like a dream by bastaerd</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535648">like a dream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/pseuds/bastaerd'>bastaerd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(collins' is mentioned at the very end), Autistic Goodsir, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:13:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,796</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535648</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/pseuds/bastaerd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s that the trouble begins when my head hits the pillow. When I lose myself over to sleep.”<br/>“You have nightmares?”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Henry Collins &amp; Harry D. S. Goodsir, Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Terror Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>like a dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>idk what's up but i haven't been able to write for a hot minute. sorry if this isn't up to standard, but it's one of those situations where it'd better to bang something out than to do nothing and feel guilty for it.<br/>written for <a href="https://theterrorbingo.tumblr.com/">terror bingo</a> for the prompt <strong><em>sealing wax</em></strong></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The sea looked black as volcanic glass as they had departed Greenhithe, dark as pitch and sleek as obsidian. It betrayed nothing, reflected only the sun, and at night, stretched into the sky so that it seemed the ocean wrapped over and around the whole world, encasing it in a rolling wave. They sailed upon emptiness, swaddled in an infinite openness dotted with stars up and down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As they passed Greenland and neared their goal, that unbroken black swath became punctuated with ice floes, until it grew mostly bluish-white, thickly veined with the sea beneath. It seemed as though nothing existed below the surface, that nothing existed as far out as the eye could see except for what lived aboard their two lonely ships. If one were to breach the surface of the water, they would see straight down, as if looking through a gemstone, into the dark nothingness below. The infinity ought to swallow them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goodsir found awe and comfort in it in equal measures, the knowledge that such a thing could exist, and that it could hold and sustain natural life, that the dark was not so dead as it appeared. The notion did not keep him from keeping the sick bay’s lamps lit, but provided him some modicum of comfort as they burned down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had been taking notes by that lamplight when he happened to look up and see Collins there at the door. How long he had been there, he did not know, but the man looked unsure of himself, his posture tight as if in apology for taking up the space of the doorway. Timidity did not suit him, had never suited him, broad-chested and robust as he was. From that alone, Goodsir could read his distress and scolded himself inwardly for failing to notice him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Collins!” he exclaimed, closing his notebook and placing his pen down alongside it as he stood. Collins winced at the sound of the chair legs scraping the floor, and so did Goodsir. “I’m sorry, I didn’t notice that you were there. Have- have you been waiting long?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gestured in invitation for Collins to enter, which he did. “Not long,” Collins answered as he stepped inside, eyes flicking up but avoiding Goodsir’s face. There was a wild look to them, like someone who was being chased and had managed to duck away and hide, but expected their pursuer to round the corner at any moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If it’s very serious, I should fetch Dr. Stanley,” said Goodsir, looking briefly to the door as it closed after Collins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” said Collins, and then appeared as though he had both surprised and shamed himself with the answer. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you. Either of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goodsir brought up a chair for him and nodded for him to sit, if he wished; Collins remained standing, but pulled his lips into something of a grateful grimace. “It’s no trouble,” Goodsir assured him. “Really. Or- or it ought not to be. This is our profession, after all.” Even if it seemed, most times, that Dr. Stanley’s profession was to patronize every man who set foot in his sick bay, Goodsir included, but he kept that to himself. Something in Collins’ posture eased, just enough to be noticed, or just enough for Goodsir to notice, that was. He found many things about Collins noticeable; wondered sometimes, treacherously, if there was anything noticeable about him for Collins. Right now, the man stood, the corner of the desk brushing his hip with the tiny involuntary sways of his body correcting its own balance, worrying at the inside of his cheek. Goodsir waited, folding his hands behind his back so that their usual jumpiness would not add to Collins’ anxiety. Dr. Stanley had told him on more than one occasion that, if he were ever to become a doctor of medicine, he would need to do something about his hands, and Goodsir had bit his tongue so as not to point out that Dr. Stanley had become a doctor despite everything about him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took some time for Collins’ words to find their way. He started and stopped twice, and then spoke at last, his voice hushed and careful. “I’ve been having trouble with my sleeping,” he told Goodsir.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Many men find themselves troubled with insomnia, especially now, approaching polar night,” Goodsir offered, but Collins shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not the going to sleep that’s the struggle,” he said. “I’ve been keeping myself as busy as I can, and by the time I retire for the night, I’m so tired that I fall asleep in minutes. Sometimes it feels, even, that I’m sleeping even before I close my eyes.” He stopped, closing his eyes for a brief moment and then opening them just as suddenly. For someone who claimed not to find any struggle in falling asleep, he looked remarkably exhausted, as if his eyes were overtaxed with the effort of keeping themselves open. As if they struggled to contend with the thought that they might be able to close at all, and knew better than to chance it. Goodsir again offered Collins a seat, and this time he nodded his thanks and sat, his hands folded in his lap, fingers laced so tightly with one another that they left his knuckles bloodlessly pale. As he sat, so did Goodsir, bringing his own chair around the desk to sit almost knee-to-knee with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s,” said Collins, and looked to Goodsir, who raised his furrowed brows. “It’s that the trouble begins when my head hits the pillow. When I lose myself over to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence fell over the infirmary. It was as if Collins had gone quiet to allow Goodsir the time to reprimand him, or to give room to whatever little he might have thought of him for his troubles. Of course, there was no ill to think-- how could he chastise a man for feeling fear, when it afforded itself to them in such abundance here and now? He wished to sit forward and knock his knees to Collins’, as his older brothers sometimes would to the younger ones when they needed comfort. Empathy had always come to all of them much easier than the ability to communicate it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have nightmares?” asked Goodsir, broaching the question as gently as he could. It seemed like if he spoke too forcefully, moved too suddenly, Collins would startle and leave, and that was the last thing Goodsir wanted. He wanted to help him, not to be an unfriendly face or an obstacle to Collins’ health.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Collins looked surprised at the question, his eyes going to Goodsir’s just for a moment before returning to their previous spot at his hands. He hesitated to speak, and sucked in a sharp breath. “It’s the same dream each time,” he answered. “I’m back in the diving suit, at the propeller. I used to think that it would be warm, in thick material such as that, but it’s barely warmer than the water around you while you’re under. It presses in on each part of me, grips every limb. Sometimes I forgot to breathe, while I was learning, only because I felt like I shouldn’t be able to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His body gave a shudder that rippled through from shoulders to waist. “In my dream, I see- I see what I saw,” he went on, “while I freed the propeller from the ice caught in it. It’s more a memory than a dream, really. I can’t look away or close my eyes, no matter how hard I try to-- I pull the line as hard and as fast as I can, I scream myself hoarse, but I can’t stop seeing… I can’t stop seeing…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What can’t you stop seeing?” Goodsir asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Collins swallowed. The back of his throat clicked as he did so. “Billy Orren,” he replied, voice so low that he spoke only in consonants, his mouth louder than his words. “His body, suspended just below the surface of the water. Under the ice, as if he had tried to swim back up but found himself trapped there. He…” Here, Collins stopped, eyes wide, mouth ajar as his voice died in his throat, looking drowned himself but for the way his eyes darted. At last, he found Goodsir, and with a breath like he was drawing himself forcibly back together, focused again, his eyebrows knitting in the middle. “Is there no remedy you can prescribe for this, doctor,” he said, either a question or a statement all on its own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know of any drug that might cure it, no,” said Goodsir, and felt like a sham of a physician for it, less deserving of the title than even Dr. Stanley would think. Advising Collins to relax, too, was out of the question on this expedition; it would be akin to telling someone caught in a house fire to stop a while and breathe. “We- It’s no wonder that you’re having these nightmares, Mr. Collins. These are extraordinary circumstances, beyond what any of us must have had in mind when we departed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Collins had seen something to which no one else among them could attest. He had been under the water, beneath the surface of the ice, had seen that dark infinity for himself. Had been in it, surrounded by it, and had felt its pressure on all sides of him. Even Goodsir’s wonder would find a limit, he thought, were he to immerse himself in the cold sea with only a line to communicate with those on ship. Collins’ gasp pulled him from his thoughts, which coincidentally reminded him of someone surfacing from the water, and he saw the man shake his head, curls wild, as if shaking water out of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know how to stop seeing it,” Collins said. “As I lay in bed, I think to myself that this time I’ll recognize what’s coming, I’ll close my eyes this time or turn away. But I forget it all in my dreams. I’m frozen like I’m ice myself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goodsir pursed his lips. Collins’ hands were still in his lap, interlocked with one another, his knuckles pale and twitching in agitation. “May I try something?” Goodsir asked, and when Collins met his eyes, raised his own hands to chest height, his palms turned towards Collins. “I- I’d like to try covering your eyes. Just with my hands, for a moment. For as long as you allow, actually, or as little.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Collins blinked, then nodded his assent. He inched his chair closer, taking care not to scrape the legs of it across the floor, until the two of them sat with their knees touching. It was awkward going, trying to figure out how to situate his hands; first, he debated covering Collins’ eyes with his fingers, but that felt too much like he was poised to gouge them out, and he settled for fitting the heels of his hands over the eye sockets, thumbs resting on Collins’ forehead so that they brushed his hairline. He applied just enough pressure so that he felt Collins’ eyelids underneath, lashes tickling the first joint of each of his thumbs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this alright?” he asked, and Collins nodded, slowly so as not to disturb Goodsir’s hands. “It is,” he replied. Then, he reached up and grasped Goodsir’s arms at the wrists in a loose grip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this alright?” he asked. His hands were large and wide, his fingers blunt. They were warm, too, from clutching themselves. Goodsir nodded, and then remembered that he had his hands over Collins’ eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” he said, and Collins hummed as they both lapsed into silence. The lamp at the desk flickered, and Goodsir imagined the orange-brown glow of it behind Collins’ eyelids.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His thoughts went then to Private Heather, still in Terror’s infirmary. He had not yet woken, and, thought Goodsir with a pang of grief from a distance, likely wouldn’t ever. All four of the expedition’s medical professionals had done what little they could for him, but it seemed more and more that every measure they had taken was for their own benefit-- the drape over his head to hide his exposed brain, the sealing of his eyes with wax at Dr. Stanley’s suggestion. All done so that they would not have to see what they could not fix, and so that what visitors he had could convince themselves for a few minutes that it wasn’t so bad as it had seemed out under the canvas. If Heather ever woke, at least he would not be able to see what was done to him or face the doctors’ defeat. Ignorance, then, was the only thing they could offer. So, too, did Goodsir offer Collins ignorance, the final bastion standing between him and horror. The last thing to do when trapped, when all other efforts have been exhausted, is to block out the snare that broke the leg.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stayed there, Goodsir’s hands on Collins’ eyes, Collins’ hands around Goodsir’s wrists, for longer than either of them cared to count. Time forgot itself there and replaced itself with a different form of measurement in units of heartbeats, one of Goodsir’s to each one of Collins’. He felt each involuntary twitch of Collins’ eyes, the lashes brushing his palms. Collins’ breaths grew long and steady and dissipated against Goodsir’s wrists, where he held them, as he traded away vigilance for a spell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t see him,” Collins said, after what seemed like a long while. He tugged Goodsir’s hands away, and Goodsir returned them to his lap, resting them on his knees. They were warm from Collins’ face, and imparted that heat through the wool of his trousers; he wondered if Collins’ hands were similarly warm from his wrists, or if it was an innate quality about him, a penetrating warmth he left upon others he touched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you be able to sleep well, do you think?” asked Goodsir. “If not, I think I’ve seen mentions of herbal sachets in one of my books, and I could try and put one together for you.” The last thing he wanted was for Collins to leave with neither answers nor adequate help and then be left to relieve a horrible memory in unconsciousness. Being alone and being haunted were remarkably similar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Collins shook his head. “I don’t think I shall need it,” he replied. “Wouldn’t want to trouble you for it, anyway. My… my mind feels better at ease, now. Thank you, doctor, for your help.” He shot his sleeves and stood from his chair. Goodsir followed, hurrying to his feet before Collins could turn and leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not a doctor, not really,” he said to him. “But if I’ve helped you at all- or-or if I haven’t, if you determine that something more is needed, I won’t turn you away from our sick bay. You needn’t feel you’re burdening us for requiring assistance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Collins was quiet for a moment. When he spoke next, he still did so softly, but he sounded more like himself than he had when he had first entered. “Thank you,” he replied, “I’ll remember that,” and Goodsir hoped that he would. He watched as Collins straightened his coat and returned his chair to the spot from which Goodsir had pulled it, before turning to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And- and, Collins?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d like to hear from you, whether it works or not, so that we may find a solution. I do believe we will find one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Collins pursed his lips in what might have been a smile, or might have only been the light. “Shall I come by tomorrow, then?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goodsir nodded. “If you have the time,” he said. “Otherwise, come by at your convenience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll have the time,” said Collins. He stood there a moment more, and then retreated to the doorway, poised to leave. “Thank you again, for all you’ve done.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goodsir felt himself flush again in bashful gratitude. “I’ve not done much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“More than you think you’ve done.” Collins bowed his head in goodbye, and then, with a resolute, “Tomorrow, then,” ducked out the door.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Collins would die, months later, with his eyes wide open as the creature tore through his stomach with claws first and then teeth. Unable to look away, he would feel the warmth of phantom hands pressing over his eyes as he went, melting away the sight of his own gory insides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tozer spoke of a man’s soul leaving his body, but would keep to himself the image which surfaced in his memory of a man, dead before his heart stopped, with red discs of wax over his eyes. He wished he had not seen either; he pressed his palms to his face.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>find me on tumblr at <a href="http://edward-little.tumblr.com">edward-little</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>